Fight the Treatment Industrial Complex

AFSC-Arizona staff are amazing advocates for prisoners - and as such, are true blessings to our communities. Spend time on their site - lots of resources.

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NATIVE RESISTANCE AND THE CARCERAL STATE

Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...

This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.

Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.

Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.

I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.

In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail, Jessie B.

I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.

I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends. If you are in need of additional assistance fighting the prison industrial complex in Arizona - or if you care to offer some aid to the cause - please contact the Phoenix Anarchist Black Cross at PO Box 7241 / Tempe, AZ 85281. collective@phoenixabc.org

Sunday, May 25, 2014

UPDATE: JUNE 13, 2014THE GOVERNOR ALREADY KNOWS ALL THIS AND DOESN'T CARE, SO DONT BOTHER WRITING TO HER. READ BREWER'S LETTER TO THE DOJ HERE, INSTEAD, THEN MINE, AND THEN WRITE TO THE US ATTORNEY GENERAL TO DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION.

PEGGY PLEWS

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"Justice for Victims of Prison Violence"

Crime Victims' Rights Week (APRIL 2013)

Governor Brewer has apparently informed the federal government that Arizona has no intentions of protecting its prisoners from rape by abiding by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which is now supposed to be going into effect across the country. Given the current conditions in Arizona's state prisons, this should be no surprise. This is just one more piece of evidence that AZ Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan has no regard whatsoever for the health, safety, or welfare of his prisoners: his actions consistently speaks louder than his words. And we can't let it go this way without a fight. The Department of Corrections (DOC) sucks up over 10% of the state budget, but NO ONE wants to hold them accountable for how that money is being spent, for some reason.

Rejecting the PREA standards means the state actually loses federal funding for the prison system, so there must be some serious problems preventing the DOC from thinking they could comply. As folks may recall, the NAACP sent the AZ DOC Director, Charles Ryan, a letter last fall expressing concern for the safety of gay and transgender prisoners in his custody, as we had received numerous complaints that they were being targeted with violence and the DOC was routinely, repeatedly, refusing to place those who needed it into protective custody (PC), leaving them to be brutalized in general population (GP) or giving them disciplinary tickets and punishment for refusing to house in GP. Ryan responded with his assurances that he cares about each and every one of his prisoners, of course, and wouldn't dream of letting them get hurt, if he can help it.

I've also received reports of DOC staff responding to rape victims with abusive language, harsh housing assignments, loss of privileges, accusations of lying, and hate speech and violence in response to a gay prisoner who was raped. Most often the victim is put in the hole during a brief "investigation" ("Hey, did you rape Joe? He says you did. NO? Oh, sorry to bother you then...."). Once the DOC investigates and fails to substantiate anything, the victim is then moved to another GP yard to be further traumatized and violated, while the accused (often a prisoner in a position of power on the yards) is left in place to brutalize others - this teaches rape victims at the AZ DOC not to speak up at all, which means there are likely far more prison rapes in our state than are reported. The AZ DOC is so incapable of adequately investigating rapes that occur in their facilities, in fact, that in 2013, out of more than 80 allegations of inmate-on-inmate "non-consensual sexual acts" (they wont even call it rape) or "abusive sexual contact" they weren't able to substantiate a single one - not a single rapist in their custody was found to have done a thing as of the time their 2013 PREA report was due. I find that astonishing - I'd fire the whole DOC Criminal Investigations Unit over that. Maybe that's why they don't want to comply with federal standards protecting prisoners from rape - Director Ryan clearly must not think there really is such a thing as rape in his prisons.

I hope all you families out there bombard the Governor's office this week with complaints about her decision to allow the DOC to refuse to comply with PREA guidelines, and demand that she take responsibility for investigating the escalating violence against gay and trans prisoners, the brown on black race war, the flourishing heroin trade, the control of most general population yards by gangs, and the horrendous disaster that the privatization of health care at the DOC has been. Please cc your correspondence to the Governor's office to the local media, too. Contact info is below.One thing which makes it easier for Arizona to get away with rejecting PREA standards, I'm sure, is the fact that the state's "Victims Bill of Rights", as enshrined in the AZ Constitution, deprives one class of people of the same rights everyone else in this state gets when they become crime victims: individuals "in custody for an offense". Even Walmart has more legal standing in court as a crime victim than actual human beings in state custody have. That means that if your child is murdered in custody - even by agents of the state - you also have no "victims rights" guaranteed to you as a survivor (no wonder the DOC leaves so many homicides unsolved...).

It seems to me that if he really cared about ending the violence and evil humans perpetrate on eachother in this world, Steve Twist would be urging Governor Brewer to reconsider her position on prison rape and implementing the PREA standards across the AZ DOC.The failure to
implement PREA standards will place kids in the juvenile and adult
criminal justice system at greater risk of sexual abuse, too - and Steve Twist is on Brewer's Children's Protective Services Task force,
so it's not like he wouldn't have her ear on this issue. Please especially write to him if you are a survivor of prison violence. He needs to hear from you, now, not me.

STEVEN J. TWIST

ARIZONA VOICE FOR CRIME VICTIMSP.O. Box 12722

Scottsdale, Arizona 85267

(480) 600-2661

If you folks who care about prisoners don't contact the Governor and media on this, your loved ones will be at even greater risk in custody in this state than they are already, so please, everyone, call or write both the Governor and Gannett News and protest her decisoon on PREA.Here is the contact info you need:

Several
states are refusing to comply with a federal law designed to reduce
sexual assaults in prison, with governors criticizing the decade-old law
as counterproductive and too expensive to implement.

The
governors of Idaho, Texas, Indiana, Utah and Arizona have informed U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder that they won't try to meet the standards
required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Governors were required
to certify by May 15 that their states either met the standards designed
to curb widespread sexual abuse behind bars, or to promise that they
were actively working toward that goal.

"Idaho supports the
spirit and intention of PREA and the National PREA Standards, but a law
with good intent has evolved into a law with too much red tape," Idaho
Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter wrote in a letter to Holder sent five days after
the deadline. It would cost the state millions of dollars to meet some
of the standards, Otter said, and he believed the cost would have little
ultimate benefit. Besides, the governor said, the state has taken
substantial steps to reduce sexual victimization in correctional
facilities.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry told Holder in April that his
state wouldn't comply because the rules were too costly and violated
states' rights. Perry's letter also encouraged other states to reject
the federal law, and said that instead, his state would continue the
programs it already has to reduce prison rapes. Perry's spokesman Rich
Parsons said Friday that Perry sent a subsequent letter last week to
Holder, contending that some PREA standards are in conflict with Texas
state laws.

Brenda Smith, a former commissioner on the National
Prison Rape Elimination Commission which helped create the PREA
standards, said the decision by some states to opt out is shameful.

"These
are not some high falutin', unreachable standards. These are things
that are constitutional, based on best practices that have been
determined in the field and in the courts," Smith said. "As a state you
can move over to the sidelines, but people in custody don't get to move
over to the sidelines. Providing them safety from sexual abuse is the
minimum we can do."

At least 10 more states — Alaska, New York,
Ohio, California, Washington, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado,
Mississippi and Illinois — have said that they can't meet all the
requirements yet, but are actively working toward that goal. New Mexico
says it's fully compliant with the law.

Leaders of Just Detention
International, an organization that works to end sexual abuse in
detention facilities, said they were encouraged that most states are
working toward PREA compliance.

"We want actual certifications to
be meaningful, so states should certify only when they know that they
are in full compliance," said the organization's executive director
Lovisa Stannow in a prepared statement. "Until then, the Department of
Justice must strictly monitor states to ensure that they are using their
federal funds appropriately. No state should be meeting its five
percent financial commitment by diverting funds away from essential
inmate services like rape crisis counseling - doing so would run counter
to the intent of PREA."

The Prison Rape Elimination Act was
passed unanimously by Congress in 2003. The next several years were
spent developing PREA standards, and in 2012 those rules went into
effect. The Department of Justice is expected to publish a list of
PREA-compliant states by September.

The major provisions of PREA
are designed to change the culture of prisons to one that has zero
tolerance for sexual victimization; to change prison facilities so that
there are fewer opportunities for rape to occur; and to change reporting
policies so that inmates have a safe way to report a crime and a safe
place to go if they are sexually victimized.

The law's only
enforcement mechanism is a partial loss of grant funding. States that
don't comply with PREA can lose up to 5 percent of the federal grant
money they receive for corrections. States can keep the money if they
promise to use it to come into compliance with the law.

The
potential human impact is huge: The Department of Justice says that at
least 216,000 of U.S. prisoners were raped or sexually abused behind
bars in 2011, and cautions that the number is likely low, because prison
rapes are seldom reported. The ACLU estimates that about 2 million
people have been raped or sexually abused behind bars since PREA was
enacted by Congress.